Death and Rebirth in a Southern City: Richmond's Historic Cemeteries
Thursday, September 23, 6P-7:30P
Virtual Event

Join us for a virtual discussion of Ryan K. Smith's new book, Death and Rebirth in a Southern City: Richmond's Historic Cemeteries. Richmond holds one of the most dramatic landscapes of death in the nation, and this book offers the first comparative study of its cemeteries from the city's founding to the present, as well as efforts made toward their preservation. Using a range of archival sources, interviews, and investigations of the sites themselves, Smith traces the disparities between those grounds that have preserved the legacies of privileged whites and those that have been worn away, dug up, and built over, undermining the memories of African Americans and Indigenous tribes.Gregg D. Kimball, the Library of Virginia's director of Public Services and Outreach, will moderate a conversation about the book and the topic with the author and panelists Kami Fletcher (associate professor of history at Albright College and president of the Collective for Radical Death Studies) and Ana Edwards (chair of the Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project, an initiative of the Defenders for Freedom, Justice and Equality). The book will be available for purchase in the Virginia Shop. For more information, contact Ashley Ramey, ashley.ramey@lva.virginia.gov or 804.692.3001

Free, registration required
Tickets available here